


whatever you're saying

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Human Auto-Responder | Lil Hal, M/M, Multi, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, everyone wants to help - Freeform, implied PTSD, people are still very fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 03:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15428490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: But they're wrong, and you're right. This isn't going to work. None of this is going to work.You've already tried everything.





	whatever you're saying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aphwhales](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphwhales/gifts).



> had a couple ideas and threw them at a page, I hope you like it, it's not super shippy just meant to...trace the outlines of what might build

"Look, I'm just saying—"

"I know what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. Now hear what I'm saying: it's not going to work."

Jake's heart is in the right place. So is Roxy's. So is Jane's. So is freaking  _Calliope_ , the  _occasional giant snake_. Absolutely no one out there can deny that.

But they're wrong, and you're right. This isn't going to work. None of this is going to work.

 

You've already tried  _everything_.

 

* * *

 

When the game spat you out at its conclusion like so much refuse, it left you a few "parting gifts", that smacked of the kinds of things exes who'd wanted to leave you for a while got you to make the break up sting a little less so. Not that you'd know. All of your information on the topic came from recycled media, created in and around the odd-dark days of the world.

There was a comic you liked, actually. Where the heroes got spat back out at the end of the story—end of  _their_  story—as kids again, all those years they'd fought for taken from them, everything they'd lost, lost all over again, and doubly so, as magic "gifted" them with their lives anew.

It ended with PTSD. It ended with unbearable shit being set on the newly re-minted shoulders of kids.

It ended up being pretty fucking relatable in the end.

 

* * *

 

"Just give it a try," Jake pleads, and you turn on a heel to look at him.

"We've tried counseling. We've tried group therapy. We've tried twenty questions. You're really standing here, telling me, something like  _truth or dare_  is going to help our little robot buddy speak to anyone he absolutely does not want to speak to."

And therein lies the crux of the matter: Hal won't talk.

 

It's not just not to you. It's not to anyone. The Auto-Responder—Hal, he goes by Hal, he's a person, he counts as a person—won't talk. You'd wonder if he had a voice, if SBURB or SGRUB had just spat him out with part of him removed as a prank, if it weren't for the fact that you'd overheard him talking...to something. Your shades, you'd discovered later. What used to be him.

Only. Now "him" was a person, living in your home, who wouldn't talk.

And nothing had worked.

And nothing ever would.

 

"We need to give him time, and space. Maybe Dave and Jade could whip up somewhere for him to go. I don't know."

Jake frowns at you, and shakes his head. "We need to let him know he's safe! That this is as close to a home as we can offer, at the moment, and it's a ripping good one!"

You don't sigh. You don't press your fingers to your temple.

You  _do_  chuck a spanner across the room. "It. Won't. Work."

"How do you know that?"

It's a new voice, but it's absolutely one you've heard before: it's yours, not-yours, and the last time you heard anything like it was inside a spare bedroom, as it spoke to—at—a pair of broken shades, empty and lifeless as he now wasn't. It's rusty, but god, it's the most beautiful thing you've ever heard.

Both of you turn to look at the newcomer.

 

Both of you turn to look at Hal.

 

He picks up the spanner, carefully not looking at either of you. "You could just ask, next time," he says, quietly, his voice hoarse, "if I wanted to play some dumb game."

"I'm sorry, Hal," Jake says. Ever the fucking diplomat. "Would you like to play truth or dare with us tonight? We're having a sleepover, and you're invited."

Your eyes haven't left Hal. He finally looks up and meets them. "Sure," he says, and it feels like maybe you can remember how to breathe.


End file.
